


Wrong Turn

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [9]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring, 1994. Pickles and Nathan stumble upon the most brutal bassist either of them have ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Turn

"Uhhhh..."

Pickles washed down the pills with the sports drink from the rest stop vending machine. "What?"

"Are you sure you should be, uh, doing pills and stuff if you're driving?"

"Nah, dude, don't worry about it." Pickles capped the bottle, put it aside, and cranked the van into drive. The crappy van might not even make it all the way to New York, but it was the best they could get on short notice that would hold all of Pickles' gear. They had left most of their stuff behind.

"Pickles, I'm turning this shit off," Nathan said, punching the tape eject.

"Dude, _I'm_ driving!" Pickles protested. "It's _my_ turn to pick the music, we agreed on that!"

"Yeah, but I'm gonna sleep. I'm fucking tired from driving all day."

"So you want me to drive in silence? Talk about brutal..."

"You can listen to your shitty music when I wake up, _god_." Nathan grabbed a pillow from behind his seat and started to make himself comfortable, but it was too fucking hot to fall asleep right away. The van had no fucking air conditioner. But he was pretty damn tired for driving so long; he'd never driven that far before at once.

Later when Nathan stirred again, a glance at the clock told him that he'd been out for over two hours. 

"About time you're awake," Pickles told him as soon as he saw movement and he pushed his cassette back into the tape player. Nathan kind of grunted in response, still waking up. He ran a hand back through his hair, sat up a little bit, and looked out the window. 

Still nothing but a lot of grass and road and shit.

Wait.

"Did that sign say Tennessee?"

"Yep."

Nathan fumbled for the map on the floor between their seats. "We're, uhh, not even supposed to pass through Tennessee, are we?"

"Yeah, about that..." Pickles cleared his throat. "I got some, uh, bad news and some good news. The bad news is I got a little more fucked up than I thought and I, uh, _may have_ made a little bit of a wrong turn."

"I told you not to do pills while driving," Nathan growled. "What the hell is the good news?"

"The good news is.... I'm sorry?" Pickles grinned. "Dude, don't worry about it, not like we got a time constraint or nothin'."

"Ugh, I can't believe we're all the way in fucking Tennessee..." Nathan dropped the map back to the floor. 

"Dude, it's getting late and I'm sick of being on the fuckin' road. We should stop here for tonight."

"In fucking Tennessee.Ugh. Yeah, okay, whatever."

A few miles later, Pickles pulled off the freeway. Tennessee was shit, but at least there seemed to be buildings and whatever here. It was better than some of the places they'd stopped to get gas and shit on the way, at least. Barely, but whatever. They got a hotel, brought in their bags, and Pickles took a shower while Nathan watched tv. 

When Pickles got out of the shower, he flopped down across the bed that Nathan was sitting on and sprawled out.

"You're getting my bed all wet." Nathan frowned at him. "Go get your own bed all wet."

"Dude, fuck that," Pickles said, his face muffled by a pillow. "Let's go out for a drink. ...Fuck," he groaned, "I keep forgetting you're only fuckin' nineteen."

"Whatever," Nathan said as he flipped off the tv remote's power button. "I'll be able to get in somewhere at least. Better than sitting in a hotel together like a couple of faggots."

Nathan always forgot that he shouldn't say things like that or something given that Pickles did things with guys sometimes. Or something. Nathan didn't ask and honestly didn't want to know about it, but he didn't care what Pickles did as long as it didn't involve him. But anyway, Pickles never said anything about his comments, so he probably wasn't offended or whatever.

Twenty minutes later found the two of them looking for a bar, but all they found was a serious dive.

"I feel like you'd get better beer from the gas station than this place," Nathan said just outside the place.

"Whatever, dude, look, they have open mic here tonight. It'll at least be entertaining."

When they went in, Nathan sat down at a table and Pickles went up to the bar. He came back with two beers and slid one across the table to Nathan, who graciously accepted. Didn't look like anyone in this place was going to say a damn thing about his age, even if they knew he wasn't old enough. 

"Well, this place sucks," Nathan said conversationally, taking a long drink of his beer. It was nice to have a beer after being on the road all day, he was suddenly discovering. 

"Yeah, if I had known they were gonna have open mic, I woulda brought my guitar over." 

Nathan grunted. He wouldn't say it out loud, but Pickles was way too good to sing or play at a shithole like this. He was even better when he was drumming for Nathan, though.

"Dunno if you can compete with all these fucking hicks."

Since nobody had raised a fuss about Nathan drinking after another beer, Pickles got them a pitcher and they relaxed watching all these shitty assholes attempt to play music. A couple of them were pretty decent at acoustic guitar, if you were into that kind of thing, but it was like blues and shit and Nathan had no interest in hearing that.

After a while, though, some guy was dragging an amp up on stage.

"Check it out, dude. What is that, a bassist? Playing by himself?"

Nathan looked at the guitar in the guy's hands, and Pickles was right- he was totally a bassist. Huh. 

"Must be pretty good if he's going to play without a band," Nathan conceded. Though he never really understood why bassists even existed. You could never fucking hear them anyway.

"Maybe he's one of those guys who plays slap really well or some shit," Pickles said, pouring himself another glass.

The guy stepped up to the mic and adjusted it. He had the most brutal face Nathan had ever seen once he actually stepped out into the light. But it didn't matter what you looked like if you could play good music. 

"Ladies and gentlemen," the guy started, "Tonight I'm going to play for you a little song I like to call 'Cock-slap Blues'. Played by my cock."

"What the-" Nathan started, but before he could say anything, the guy unzipped his pants and let them fall to the floor. Nathan looked away just a second too late and ended up accidentally getting far too good a look at the guy's dick.

But then he heard the sound of the bass start up. And it actually sounded pretty good.

"Dude, no fuckin' way," Pickles was laughing. "Fucking unbelievable, dude, you gotta take a look at this."

Nathan scowled, but he figured... well, he had already caught a glimpse of it, so... slowly, he looked up at the stage. This guy was actually playing the bass with his dick. And it sounded fucking amazing! Even if Nathan was horrified at what he was actually looking at.

When the guy finished, he leaned down and pulled up his pants like it was no big deal, and then he flipped the audience the finger as he stomped off stage.

"I hate to admit this, but that is one of the most brutal things I've ever seen," Nathan said.

"Totally. Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" 

"I mean, I dunno. Are you thinking that you never want to see another guy's you-know-what again?" Because Nathan sure didn't.

"No, dude, we should _recruit_ him!" 

"Then I would definitely have to see his _hnnnnghhh_ again," Nathan pointed out.

"Well, we need a bassist, and bassists are a dime a dozen- most of them can't do more than the fuckin' basics. This guy at least has a fuckin' trick up his sleeve, you know?"

Nathan considered that. Pickles was actually right. And Nathan didn't really care about who his bassist was as long as he was brutal. And this guy had just proved that he was pretty brutal.

"I guess you're right. But telling him to just leave with us and go to New York is kind of..."

Pickles laughed. "Dude, look around you. If anyone thinks this place is worth staying in over joining a band, _any_ band, then they're fucked in the head, and that is the fuckin' truth."

"Alright, whatever, let's give it a shot."

"Okay, just lemme do the talking," Pickles said, and Nathan was more than happy to comply. Talking was never really his strong suit, and Pickles understood that enough to step up and take responsibility. Anyway, Pickles had way more experience in the music business anyway, or whatever.

Pickles refilled their pitcher and got another glass, and they headed over to where that guy was. He was by himself, sitting with his arms crossed and glaring at the stage. Kind of a weird sort of loner dude, wasn't he? Maybe this was a bad idea... But Pickles was right...

"Hey, uh, excuse me?" Pickled hedged at the edge of the guy's table. "Hi, uh, sorry to bother you."

The guy just glared at him, not budging an inch.

"Mind if we have a seat? Got enough to share," Pickles continued, setting the pitcher and glasses down on the guy's table. 

"Feel free," the guy said, but he didn't look too excited about being offered a drink or anything. What a weirdo.

"I'm Pickles, an' this is my buddy Nate'n." Nathan nodded to the guy, who nodded back.

"Pickles, huh? Where have I heard that name before..." 

"Uhhh..." Nathan couldn't help smirking. He loved this, when people recognised Pickles. Pickles fucking hated it and didn't want to talk about it. But then he surprised Nathan with his answer. "I used to be in a band called Snakes N Barrels, no big deal, but I mean, I guess we got a _little_ bit of media attention... Anyway, Nate an' I are starting a band."

"You didn't introduce yourself," Nathan pointed out, interrupting. Hey, he knew how manners worked and shit. Not that he had any, but this guy could at least do that much if they were going out of their way to fucking recruit him into their band.

"William Murderface," the guy said, unblinking.

"Murderface? Whoa. That's fucking brutal."

" _Anyway,_ " Pickles continued. "We saw your, uh, little show up there- fuckin' badass, by the way- and we were wondering if you were maybe interested in joining our band."

Murderface looked from Pickles to Nathan and back to Pickles again, his face completely unreadable. "Tell me more."

"We play death metal," Nathan told him. This guy was totally unimpressed with them, even though he knew Pickles was famous or whatever. Maybe this guy wasn't good enough for them after all.

"Nate's on vocals. I'm the drummer. We're actually on our way to New York City right now, just stoppin' in for the night. What do you think? Wanna come with us?"

Murderface poured himself a beer from their pitcher without answering and then gulped down about half of it.

"You're asking me to just leave home and go to New York on a whim, and join a band I know nothing about?"

"Yeah, pretty much," said Nathan, growing impatient.

Murderface shrugged. "Alright, I'll do it."

Well that was fucking easier than he thought it would be. But like Pickles said, who the hell would want to stay here? Nathan reached in his pocket and then laid down a tape on the table, sliding it across to Murderface. "Here. This is our demo."

"Dude, you just carry a copy of that in your pocket everywhere?" Pickles laughed at him.

" _Hey._ " Nathan furrowed his brow. "You never know who you're gonna meet."

They got Murderface's address and phone number and he left for the night. He would listen to their demo and if he was still set on it, they'd talk to him tomorrow and go pick him up. But for tonight, they had a pitcher to finish. Actually, Nathan was already pretty drunk, but luckily, he had Pickles there to get him back to their hotel room at the end of the night.

\---

_Near the West Virginia / Maryland border_

"What in the _ever-living fuck_ would possess you to eat all those fucking beans for breakfast, dude?! It fuckin' stinks in here!"

"Well, _I_ can't help it- I need to get my daily dose of protein! Open a window if you have such a _problem!_ "

"This isn't even a problem a window can solve! Do you even have a fuckin' sense of smell?"

Nathan was seriously sick of being stuck in a van with his drummer and bassist.


End file.
